Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment #1)

He was late for breakfast.

Iris drank her amusement along with her tea as Marisol huffed, watching the porridge grow cold on the table.

“I told him eight sharp, didn’t I?” she said.

“You did,” Attie confirmed, forgoing manners to reach for a scone. “Perhaps he overslept?”

“Perhaps.” Marisol’s gaze flickered across the table. “Iris? Will you go knock on Roman’s door and see if he’s awake?”

Iris nodded, setting her teacup down. She hurried up the shadowed stairs, her reflection spilling across mirror after mirror. She approached Roman’s bedroom door and knocked loudly, pressing her nose to the wood.

“Get up, lazybones. We’re waiting to eat breakfast because of you.”

Her words fell on silence. She frowned, knocking again.

“Kitt? Are you awake?”

Again, there was no answer. She couldn’t describe why her chest constricted or why her stomach suddenly dropped.

“Answer me, Kitt.” Iris reached for the door, only to find it was locked. Her fears rose, until she told herself she was being ridiculous and to shake them off.

She returned to the heat of the kitchen, both Marisol and Attie glancing at her with expectation.

“He didn’t answer,” Iris said, sliding into her chair. “And his door was locked.”

Marisol paled. “Do you think I need to climb the roof and look through his window, to ensure he’s all right?”

“You will leave all roof climbing to me,” Attie stated, pouring herself a third cup of tea. “But don’t you have a skeleton key, Marisol?”

That was when the back doors swung open and Roman burst into the kitchen, bright-eyed and windblown. Marisol screeched, Attie spilled tea all over her plate, and Iris jumped so hard she banged her knee against the table leg.

“Forgive me,” Roman panted. “I lost track of the hour. I hope the three of you weren’t waiting on me.”

Iris glowered. “Yes, of course we were, Kitt.”

“My apologies,” he said, closing the twin doors behind him. “I’ll see that it doesn’t happen again.”

Marisol’s hand was clamped over her mouth, but it gradually lowered to her neck as she said, “Please, have a seat, Roman.”

He took the chair across from Iris’s. She couldn’t help but study him beneath her lashes. His face was flushed as if the wind had kissed him, his eyes gleamed like dew, and his hair was tangled as if fingers had been raked through it. He looked half wild and smelled like morning air and mist and sweat, and Iris couldn’t keep her mouth shut a moment longer.

“Where were you, Kitt?”

He glanced up at her. “I was on a run.”

“A run?”

“Yes. I like to run several kilometers every morning.” He shoveled a spoonful of sugar into his tea. “Why? Is that acceptable to you, Winnow?”

“It is, so long as we don’t expire from hunger waiting for you every sunrise,” Iris quipped, and she thought she saw a smile tease his lips, but perhaps she imagined it.

“Again, I’m sorry,” he said, glancing at Marisol.

“There’s no need to apologize.” Marisol handed him the pitcher of cream. “But all I ask is you refrain from running when it’s dark, due to the first siren I told you about.”

He paused. “The hounds, yes. I waited until first light before I left this morning. I’ll see to it that I’m back on time tomorrow.” And he winked at Iris.

She was so flustered by it she spilled her tea.

Dear Carver,

It’s only been five days since you last wrote, and yet it feels like five weeks for me. I didn’t realize how much your letters were grounding me, and while I feel far too vulnerable confessing this … I miss them. I miss you and your words.

I was wondering when

A knock on her door interrupted her.

Iris paused, her fingertips slipping off the keys. It was late. Her candle had burned half of its life away, and she left her sentence dangling on the paper as she rose to answer the door.

She was shocked to find Roman.

“Do you need something?” she asked. Sometimes she forgot how tall he was, until she was standing toe to toe with him.

“I see you’re working on more front-page war essays.” His gaze flickered beyond her to the typewriter on her desk. “Or perhaps you’re writing to someone?”

“I’m sorry, is my nocturnal typing keeping you up?” Iris said. “I suppose we’ll have to ask Marisol to move you to a different roo—”

“I wanted to see if you would like to run with me,” he said. Somehow he made the possibility sound sophisticated, even as they stood facing each other in wrinkled jumpsuits at ten o’clock at night.

Iris’s brow raised. “I’m sorry?”

“Run. Two feet on and off the ground, pushing forward. Tomorrow morning.”

“I fear I don’t run, Kitt.”

“I beg to disagree. You were like wildfire in the field yesterday afternoon.”

“Yes, well, that was a special circumstance,” she said, leaning on the door.

“And perhaps another occasion like that will arise again soon,” he countered, and Iris had nothing to say, because he was right. “I thought I’d ask, just in case you’re interested. If so, meet me tomorrow morning in the garden at first light.”

“I’ll consider it, Kitt, but right now I’m tired and need to finish this letter that you interrupted. Good night.”

She gently shut the door in his face, but not before she noticed how his eyes flashed, widening as if he wanted to say something more but he lost the chance.

Iris returned to her desk and sat. She stared at her letter and tried to pick up where she had left off, but she no longer had the desire to write to Carver.

He was to write her first. Whenever he was able or cared to.

She needed to wait. She shouldn’t sound so desperate to a boy she hadn’t even met.

She pulled the paper from the typewriter and tossed it in the dustbin.

She really didn’t want to exercise with Roman. But the more she remembered the sight of him returning from his run—all vigor and fire, as if he had drunk from the sky, untamed and unburdened and alive—the more she wanted to feel that herself.

It also helped that she conveniently woke just before dawn.

Iris lay on her pallet, listening to him move in his room. She listened as he quietly opened his door and walked past hers on gentle tread, down the stairs. She imagined him standing in the garden, waiting for her.

She decided she would go, thinking it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get in better shape before she was summoned to the front lines.

Iris dressed in her clean jumpsuit, rushing to don her socks and lace her boots in the dark. She braided her hair on the way downstairs, and then had a stab of worry. Perhaps he wouldn’t be waiting for her. Perhaps she had taken too long, and he had left her.

She opened the twin doors and found him there, pacing the edges of the garden. He stopped when he saw her, his breath hitching as if he hadn’t believed she would come.

“Worried I would stand you up, Kitt?” she asked, walking to him.

He smiled, but it could have passed for a wince in the shadows. “Not in the slightest.”

“What made you so confident?”

“You’re not one to let a challenge slip away, Winnow.”

“For being a mere acquaintance and office rival, you seem to know a lot about me,” Iris mused, standing before him.

Roman studied her. A few stars burned above them, extinguishing one by one as day broke. The first rays of sun illuminated the tree boughs overhead, the ivy and mossy stones of the B and B, and the flittering of birds. Light limned Iris’s arms and the length of her braid, Roman’s angular face and tousled dark hair.

It felt like she had woken in another world.

“I may have said you were a rival,” he countered. “But I never said you were an acquaintance.”

Before Iris could scrounge up a retort—was that a good thing or a bad thing?—Roman was striding to the gate, stepping onto the street.

“Tell me, Winnow,” he said. “Have you ever run a kilometer before?”

“No.” She began to keenly regret her decision to join him; she realized he was bound to run her ragged, to gloat with his stamina. She could already taste the dust he would kick up in her face, leaving her far behind. Perhaps this was some sort of twisted payback, for making him work to become columnist when the position would have been given to him on a silver platter if she hadn’t been at the Gazette. A column that he surrendered almost as swiftly as he had earned it, which continued to puzzle her.

“Good,” he said as she followed him through the gate. “We’ll start simple and work our way up every morning.”

“Every morning?” she cried.

“We need to be consistent if you want to make any sort of progress,” he said, beginning a brisk walk up the street. “Is there a problem with that?”

Iris sighed, keeping pace with him. “No. But if you’re a sorry coach, then don’t expect me to return tomorrow morning.”

“Fair enough.”

They walked for several minutes, Roman keeping an eye on his wristwatch. The silence was soft between them, the chilled morning air sharp as a blade down her throat. Soon, Iris felt her blood warm, and when Roman said it was time to run, she fell into a slow jog at his side.

“We’ll run for a minute, walk for two, and repeat that cycle until we need to return to Marisol’s,” he explained.

“Are you some sort of professional at this?” She couldn’t resist asking.

“I ran track at school, a few years back.”

Iris tried to imagine that—him dashing around a circular track in very short trousers. She laughed, partly embarrassed by her train of thought, which drew his attention.

“That’s hilarious to you?” he asked.

“No, but I’m wondering why you’re going so slow for me when you could run laps around this town.”

Roman checked his watch. She didn’t think he was going to respond until he said, “And now we walk.” He slowed, and she mirrored him. “I often run alone. But sometimes it’s nice to have company.” He looked at her. Iris quickly glanced away from him, distracting herself with details of the street.

They fell into a dance side by side, running for one minute, walking for two. At first, it felt easy to her, until they reached the hilly side of the bluff, and she suddenly felt like she might expire.

“Are you trying to kill me, Kitt?” she panted, struggling up the slope.

“Now, that would be a bestselling headline,” he said cheerfully, not at all winded. “INKRIDDEN IRIS AND THE HILL THAT BESTED HER.”

She smacked his arm, pressing a smile between her lips. “How much … longer … until we walk?”

He checked his watch. “Forty more seconds.” And he wouldn’t be Roman Kitt if he didn’t show off.

He turned to face her, running backward and slightly ahead, so he could keep his gaze on her as she labored up the hill.

“That’s it. You’re doing great, Winnow.”

“Shut up, Kitt.”

“Absolutely. Whatever you want.”

She glared at him—the flush of his cheeks, the mirth in his eyes. He was quite distracting, and she panted, “Are you trying … to tempt me to … press onward, like you’re some … metaphorical carrot?”

He laughed. The sound went through her like static, down to her toes. “If only I were. Do we need to stop?”

Yes. “No.”

“Good. You have twenty more seconds. Deep breaths through your belly, Winnow. Not your chest.”

She bared her teeth against the discomfort and strove to breathe as he had instructed. It was difficult when her lungs were heaving beyond her control. I am not doing this torture tomorrow, she thought over and over. A chant to carry her up the rest of the hill. I am not—

“Tell me what you think of this place,” he said, not two seconds later. “Do you like Avalon Bluff?”

“I can’t run and chat, Kitt!”

“When I’m done training you, you’ll be able to.”

“Who says … I’m doing this … tomorrow?” Gods, she felt like she was about to die.

“This does,” he said, at last turning around to lead her the rest of the way up the hill.

“Your backside?” she growled, helplessly studying it.

“No, Winnow,” he tossed over his shoulder. “This view.” He came to a stop on the crest of the hill.

Iris watched the sun gild his body. The light hit her two breaths later, when she reached the top at his side. Hands on her knees, she fought to calm her heart, sweat dripping down her back. But when she could stand upright, she reveled in the view. The fog was melting in the valleys. A river meandered through a field. The dew glittered like gemstones on the grass. The land seemed to roll on and on forever, idyllic as a dream, and Iris shielded her eyes, wondering where the road would take them if they kept running.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. And how strange to know this view had been here all along, and she had failed to see it.

Roman was quiet at her side, and they stood like that for a few moments. Soon, her heart was steady and her lungs calm. Her legs felt a bit shaky, and she knew she’d be sore tomorrow.

“Winnow?” he said, glancing at his watch with a frown.

“What’s wrong, Kitt?”

“We have exactly five minutes to get back to Marisol’s.”

“What?”

“We’ll have to run the whole way to make it by eight, but it’s mostly downhill.”

“Kitt!”

He began to jog the route they had come, and Iris had no choice but to chase after him, ankles sore as her boots hit the cobblestones.

Oh, she was going to kill him.

They were late by seven minutes.